1. Be negative. Mope around, “Woe is me”, that kind of crap. Obvious, but life is too short to do that anyway, and when you do it you kill the vibe for everyone around you.

2. Throw up road blocks. When people are excited about an idea, try to embrace it first and see if you can help figure out how to make it happen. Those that immediately say, “Nope, not possible”, really bum everybody out.

3. Make people silence their music. Or stop playing ping pong. Or stop having a good time…because its too loud. Sometimes that is necessary, but most of the time, if people are having fun at work, you should throw on headphones rather than making your office have a library setting.

4. Argue loudly with your spouse or partner on the phone. That can be so vibe-killing. It’s hard for me to get back to work when I hear you and your husband argue for twenty minutes about why he should, in fact, finally clean out his side of the closet.

5. Come in when you’re sick.

6. Check your phone every two minutes during a meeting. Sometimes people actually want to get things done in a meeting and get everyone on the same page. People that are checking their blackberry all the time show everyone else that there are other things that are more important. And while we’re on the topic of meetings…

7. Don’t have so many friggin meetings! And if you do, don’t have them in conference rooms all the time. More on why meetings suck.

8. Be undependable. I love the visual of a bunch of people rowing a boat, say four on each side, and when one person starts slacking off the boat starts to turn and can’t stay on course. That can be so motivation-killing to the rest of the people on the boat.

9. Bring politics into the workplace. Don’t do it, ever, please :)

What’d I miss?

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Adam

Agree 100% on all points except #5. Yes, don’t come into work if you’re hacking every 5 minutes, but working through a bad cold/fever can show dedication to your teammates and getting the job done.

Another one? When a coworker complains about how much work they have to get done and spends more time complaining about it than actually tackling the task at hand. Wastes my time and their’s. This could be filed under #1 but still felt good to get out there.

I would say adding “Acting like you know everything and are always right” would be appropriate as well. It’s so frustrating when someone thinks they’re the only one that knows how a client or project should proceed. That may tie in some with #2, but arrogance is obnoxious. Acting solo instead of as a team really kills the office vibe.

I don’t know why, but whenever I’ve been an office jock I’ve had the unpleasant experience of listening to nail-clipping in the office. What would compel you to do that at your desk!? Ugh. I can still hear that clicking sound when I close my eyes.

2 things:
– Always pointing out the problems and what’s broken without offering ideas on solutions. People who do this tend to bug me. I’ve always said that if you point out a problem, at least give some thought to how it might be solved or how to find a path to a solution. Be the guy that tries to solves, not just “Mr. Problem Pointer-Outer”
– “Captain Hindsight” tends to be annoying sometimes too. This is the person who always seems to offer all sorts of “expertise and advice” on how something should have been done after the fact (the only time they seem to speak up). Yeah, yeah. Thank you Captain Hindsight for your 20/20 vision on the past. There was a hilarious Southpark episode on this.